The contract changes while the work is happening

What a live project actually generates

The signed contract is a small fraction of it. Most of the legal exposure on a project accumulates in documents produced after work started.

• Main contracts and subcontracts — Subcontracts issued from the main contract with the flow-down clauses carried through, so the obligations you owe upstream are the ones you pass down.
• Variations and change orders — Each priced change attaches to the clause it modifies rather than arriving as a separate document to be reconciled at final account.
• Extensions of time and delay claims — Claims that live or die on notice periods. The deadline comes out of the contract clause itself, with the supporting correspondence already attached to it.
• Insurance, bonds and warranties — Certificates and collateral warranties checked against what the contract above requires, so a shortfall is caught before it becomes a liability.
• Supply and plant hire agreements — High-volume commercial paper where the terms are ordinary and the assistant can negotiate inside policy without a project manager's week disappearing.
• Professional appointments — Consultant and designer appointments where scope, liability caps and net-contribution terms need the same scrutiny as the build contract.

Variations that stay attached to the contract

Final account disputes are usually not about whether a variation was agreed. They are about which version of what it was agreed against, and whether anybody can prove it.

• A change modifies a clause, not a folder — An agreed variation resolves against the clause it affects, so the operative contract stays readable instead of becoming a base document plus forty attachments.
• One current version, everywhere — Site and office read the same agreement. There is no circulating copy, so the question of which revision governs today does not arise.
• Agreement is evidenced, not asserted — Each variation carries the parties, the price, the identity that accepted it and the version it was accepted against, in a timestamped history.
• Final account reconciles against the record — The agreed variations are data in the agreement rather than a spreadsheet somebody maintained, so reconciliation starts from the contract itself.

Notice provisions that come out of the contract

The most expensive clause in a construction contract is usually the one with a deadline in it. These dates are extracted from the executed agreement, not entered into a calendar by hand.

• Obligations extracted at execution — When the contract is signed, the notice periods, milestone dates, retention terms and liquidated damages provisions are pulled out of the document as structured data.
• Windows surface before they close — The deadline is anchored to the clause that created it, so when a window opens the relevant provision and the correspondence around it are already attached.
• The assistant prepares the notice — Inside a mandate you set, it drafts the notice from the clause's own requirements — form, recipient, period — and brings it to you ready to send rather than as a reminder to write one.
• A named person still decides — Claims and notices are gated by default. The assistant does the preparation; the commercial manager sends it, and that decision is recorded against the version it was made on.
• Retention and completion dates follow — Practical completion, defects periods and retention release windows are tracked from the certified dates in the record, so the second half of retention is not a surprise.

Reconstructed, or recorded

Both of these are how a final account gets assembled. Only one of them survives a dispute without a quantity surveyor's archaeology.

• The usual way: Variations live as emails, site instructions and a spreadsheet somebody maintained
• The usual way: Which revision of the subcontract governs a given variation is a matter of argument
• The usual way: Notice deadlines are in a diary entry, if anyone made one
• The usual way: Approval for a change is a reply from a phone, unbound to any document version
• The usual way: Insurance and warranty shortfalls are found when a claim is made
• The usual way: The final account starts with weeks of reconstruction
• Paqt: Each variation attached to the clause it modifies, with its price and its approver
• Paqt: One current agreement, with every prior version addressable and diffable
• Paqt: Notice windows extracted from the contract clauses themselves
• Paqt: Approvals bound to a version and an identity in a tamper-evident history
• Paqt: Certificates checked against what the contract above actually requires
• Paqt: The final account reconciles against the record that produced it

What commercial teams ask us

• Our subcontracts have to flow down from the main contract. Does that work? That is the normal case. The subcontract is generated from the main contract's terms, with the flow-down clauses carried through, so the obligations you owe upstream are the ones you pass down. Where a subcontractor negotiates a flow-down clause, the deviation is flagged against the main contract position rather than quietly accepted.
• Will site teams actually use this? The unit is a chat room with the document in it, and a variation gets agreed in the same conversation where it was raised. The thing site teams stop doing is hunting for the current revision, which is usually enough on its own.
• Can the assistant issue a delay notice on its own? Not unless you decide it should. Claims and notices are gated by default: the assistant drafts the notice from the clause's own requirements and brings it to a named person. Gating is a property of the clause, so no autonomy level overrides it.
• What about the paperwork volume — plant hire, suppliers, consultants? That is where the assistant earns its place. Ordinary commercial paper is negotiated inside the policy you set, with the handful of material deviations escalated, so the commercial team spends its attention on the main contract and the claims.